


Rúin

by Razzaroo



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5758849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razzaroo/pseuds/Razzaroo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall Lynch may have taught Declan how to be a liar but it was Aurora who taught him to keep secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rúin

Niall Lynch may have taught his oldest son to be a liar but it was Aurora who taught him to keep secrets.

When they were alone, she sat next to Declan's cot, her face pressed to the bars, one hand resting alongside him. More often than not, his tiny fingers curled around one of hers, his nails soft squares of pink. Overhead, the mobile that Niall had dreamt spun, crows and ravens turning to a tune Aurora didn't know.

( _She'd told Niall that corvids were ugly birds for a baby's nursery. He'd said they were messengers of the Otherworld and so deserved their place in a space for dreaming.)_

"When you were born," she said, whispering because it felt improper for her to speak any louder to a person so new to the world, "The whole world seemed to light up gold. The sun turned dew to diamonds." She thought of Niall and how he had missed it, "We'll not tell him, hmm? Something special, just between us."

He reached for her and she stood to pick him up. Through the layers of his blanket, she could feel the fragility of his bones, as tiny as a bird's.

"Our secret," she said, and she cradled him in one arm to press a finger to her lips, "Between us."

* * *

It was Declan who woke her up the night Matthew was born. He'd clambered over her in an attempt to get to Niall, small hands digging into her hip and stomach, dragging her away from the velvet of sleep. She rolled over and he toppled, falling onto Niall.

"What is it?" Niall asked, bleary and irritated. He loathed to be taken from his dreams, even by one of his children. Aurora sat up to envelop Declan in her arms, her chin on his head.

"Ronan did something," he said and, as if on cue, there was the sound of a baby's cry. Aurora's eyes met Niall's and she mouthed ' _his dreams.'_

"I'll deal with this," Niall said, "Stay here and you…" he pinched Declan's cheek, "Don't cry too much on your Mam. She's soft."

He left and Aurora was left with Declan. She moved to kiss him and he let her in a way Ronan would rarely have accepted. Through the wall, she could hear Niall talking to Ronan, asking him what had happened in slow, gentle words that a three year old would understand.

"Where do they come from?" he asked eventually, "The things Ronan finds."

"They come from his dreams," Aurora said, because lying to a child never worked well, "There's a forest that lives in dreams that gives things to some people. He takes them from there."

"Oh." A frown pinched between his eyebrows, "I've never been there."

"Maybe you just haven't found it yet," Aurora said softly and she hoped he never did. She saw how much it made Niall on edge, how he always seemed to think there was someone after him, how his escapades left him with bloodied knuckles and bruised lips, "We mustn't tell Ronan about it. Not yet. You promise?"

She extended her little finger to him and he linked his with hers, his expression the solemn one of a child who knew he was being entrusted with something bigger than himself.

"Secret?" he asked, pressing one finger against his lips.

"Secret," Aurora repeated, smiling slightly as she copied him.

* * *

"What Lynch child really needs to learn French numbers and colours?"

"One who wants to learn French, presumably?"

Aurora sat at the kitchen table with Declan, making sure he kept his wobbly eight year old handwriting tidy. Despite her knowing no French, he'd jumped at the chance to have time with her, even if Niall would have been the better parent to ask; it seemed as if he'd long since given up on Niall.

"Do you want to learn French, Declan?" Niall asked as he rinsed his tender knuckles under the kitchen sink. Declan shrugged.

"I like it," he said, "It's OK."

"You'd like Gaelic," Niall said, "It's a dream language, you know."

Declan looked up from his French sentences to fix his father with a look of scornful, childish doubt, "No, it's not. You're a liar."

Aurora had to hide her smile at the slightly affronted look on Niall's face. While she didn't have a French word to her name, she did have more than one language at her disposal. It was the language spoken in dreams, spoken in sleep and forgotten upon waking. She'd taught some to Declan, only some choice words when he was awake from fear that what came out of Ronan's dreams would start coming out of his. Sometimes, Aurora wondered if it was those protective words that kept Declan from the same abilities as his father and brother.

"And what do you think is?" Niall asked, "What do you know about dreaming, Decs?"

Declan looked at Aurora then and she only raised an eyebrow. This was one of their secrets, one of the things that they kept special between the two of them, one of the things that even little Matthew was not privy to.

"Latin," he said eventually, "Dreams speak Latin."

* * *

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

A gentle breeze through the open window blew the feathers across the wooden floor. They were all black with subtle undertones of jewel colours: purple, green, blue. Declan was gathering them up, a bundle of them crushed in one hand.

"Where did they all come from?" Aurora asked. She stooped to pick one up and felt a familiar thrill up her arm, the same she'd felt the first time she'd held Matthew, "Declan, these are—"

"They were birds in the dream," he said quickly, knowing how Aurora hated death of any kind, "I don't know what happened."

Aurora ran the feather between her fingers; it was softer than anything that could come from the waking world. Declan sighed and stopped gathering them up. The ones in his hand bent as he squeezed them.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," he said, "I don't want to do this."

"You used to, when you were little," Aurora said. She glanced over her shoulder before stepping into his room, shutting the door behind her. She knelt down in front of him, "What changed?"

"I grew up," he said and Aurora could almost touch Niall's influence on the words. She pursed her lips, sour that Niall had taught their son to even lie to her.

She said nothing in return. Instead, she picked up the rest of the feathers and took the time to examine his face. There was fear there, fear she couldn't understand. Was it fear of what he saw in his dreams, what he took from them, of what that could mean for him? Or was it more fear of what Niall would say?

"Do you want him to know?" she asked, "I don't think he'd say anything bad about it."

"It's hardly the same level as a baby," Declan replied, standing with fistfuls of feathers, and there's a toxic bite beneath the words. Something sank behind Aurora's ribs; the idea of Declan having any resentment to his father or either of his brothers wounded her in a place that couldn't be touched.

"Then he won't know," she said, tucking the feathers she held into her pocket; she'd stash them away later, along with the earliest things Ronan had pulled from his dreams and presented to her with a toddler's pride, "Let him think you can't do it."

"That's technically a lie."

"No," Aurora said, because she hated to lie, "It's only a secret."

* * *

Seeing him again after two years of sleep, two years of waiting and wanting and missing her children with every piece of herself left after Niall's death, Aurora still wasn't ready to see how much her oldest son had had to grow up.

She didn't ask Declan how he'd found the forest and he didn't tell her. Instead, they sat side by side on the bonnet of his car. Declan only looked at the stars above, at how they shifted and moved in a way they never did outside the forest, but Aurora's attention was on him. She reached to brush dark hair away from his face and wondered if there was too much Niall in him.

"You're not sleeping."

Nothing in it rang like a question but he answered it as if it was, "I have pills."

"Your father would have hated that."

Declan's eyes slid closed, "It wouldn't be the first."

Aurora wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him, the same thing she could get away with when it came to Matthew, but something told her he had grown too old for mothering. There was a faded mark on his cheekbone so she prodded at that instead.

"Where did this come from?" she asked and dreaded the answer; she'd seen marks like it on Niall's face, treated them whilst he avoided answering her questions about who what and where.

( _It was never "why?" She always knew the answer why.)_

He looked at her and something twinged in her chest; he had Niall's eyes, maybe more than Ronan did. He answered with a smirk.

"If I tell you," he said, "Then it would stop being a secret."


End file.
